Startling.

A game in which Manny hits two home runs, Papi knocks one out as well, and Beckett’s on the hill? Man, that’s a game where you just park your arse in front of the telly with a steak and an onion loaf and let the good times roll.

Or so I figgered early on.

I am respectfully submitting last night’s game for your consideration as “worst loss of the 2006 season” thus far. That was just brutal. And while some might point to Beckett’s plunking of Aaron Hill as the beginning of the unraveling, what stands tallest in my mind is that absolutely horrific call on what looked like a strike out of Troy Glaus by Keith Foulke in the twelfth. I mean… dayam.

Worst of all, as is the case with any extra-inning game, there’s a greater time investment involved, making the final curtain all the more depressing. That’s four hours of our lives we won’t be getting back.

If there’s any silver to be mined from last evening, it’s that El Bencho led Baltimore’s charge over the Crankees.